The objective of this research is to determine how both human stress and human performance vary with the level of automation in an industrial inspection job. Industry is demanding higher quality of its workers and of its inspectors who are charged with maintaining and monitoring that quality. At the same time, sophisticated automation is becoming available to extend the human inspector's capabilities on some tasks within the inspection job. Inspection is known to be a stressful job and, with these two trends, a job which is likely to increase in stressfulness. A machine, called a Color Video Comparator or CVC, will be used to obtain six levels of inspection automation from unaided human inspection through automated display, sequencing and pacing to a pattern-recognition algorithm. Performance and task stress will be measured in a laboratory task of inspection printed circuit boards for eight subjects at each level of automation. The procedure follows one already performed successfully at one level for the Western Electric Company. This company will supply the CVC and the circuit boards used in the study. Parts of the laboratory study will be replicated using inspectors at two Western Electric plants so that differences between task stress and job stress can be measured. The results of the project will be of value to designers of automated and semi-automated systems as they will help to specify the level of automation which gives the best balance between system performance and operator stress.